Stephen Braden
Georgia State University

With this book, one of the latest in the "Praeger Series in Political Communication," Jim A. Kuypers (Dartmouth College) probes an heretofore unexamined rhetorical situation: the contemporary rhetorical presidency set in the Post-Cold War discursive terrain. Kuypers notes that Bill Clinton is the first atomic-age president who cannot frame foreign policy in the established Cold War meta-narrative. He argues that without the meta-narrative, the press-dependent American presidency is now in a more tenuous rhetorical position concerning foreign crisis situations because in contemporary times the press is more likely to offer its own formulation of a crisis circumstance. Moreover, notes Kuypers, many times this assessment of events by the press is in opposition to the president's assessment.

The study seeks to answer three questions through a comparative framing analysis: (1). How did the Clinton administration frame the crisis situations in Haiti, North Korea, and Bosnia? (2). When responding to the Clinton administration, how did the press frame the respective situations? (3). Did the frames of the president and the press ever coalesce to present a unified contextual whole? Kuypers analyzes Clinton administration public messages and the respective responses from the New York Times and the Washington Post.

The eight chapters are thoroughly researched and specific terms are well defined. Kuypers documents theories of priming, framing, agenda-setting, and agenda-extension to construct his study.

Kuypers found that the press at times produced dissimilar frames in all three crisis situations, thus grossly affecting the message the public received about the three situations. He found that the administration asserted certain definitions of situations and at times the press offered another. Overall, he found that without the Cold War meta-narrative the president did not receive press support in crisis situations. Rather, Kuypers argues, the press, grounded in norms of idealized Liberalism, promoted its own ideals regarding foreign policy. In so doing, the press often advanced its own policy options over those of the president.

Kuypers proves his point that without the Cold War, the rhetorical frame in which policy is scrutinized can produce confusion for the public. Lacking the Cold War meta-narrative, the American public ceases to see situations as clearly as in the past. Instead, today the public often receives one frame from the president, and in many cases another from the media. He concludes, however, that the relationship between the press and the president is a reciprocal one: "The president affects press content, and the press affects presidential messages as well" (p. 187). However, Kuypers sounds an alarm-bell in finding that although the press articulated Clinton's message-content, that oftentimes the important original message-context was not offered.
 
Kuypers offers legitimate concerns regarding the press elevating its own agenda and moral philosophy, especially if in times of crisis the public finds it difficult to acquire objective reporting on presidential messages. Kuypers admonishes the media for not living up to Social Responsibility guidelines, and claims "the press not only does a disservice to Americans; it acts to undermine the authority and interpretive precision of the president of the United States" (p. 189).

Kuypers's book contributes to and extends the study of presidential crisis rhetoric and media effects upon political messages, especially in the post-Cold War world. This book would be an excellent choice for a variety of courses such as presidential communication, rhetoric and politics, media studies, and media and politics.